


One Day in Volterra

by UnholySpectacle



Category: Twilight (Movies), Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Groundhog Day (1993) Fusion, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, F/M, Gen, Groundhog Day, Not Beta Read, Time Loop, Twilight New Moon AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25415395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnholySpectacle/pseuds/UnholySpectacle
Summary: Bella Swan thought she had already lived through all of this vampire nonsense and put it behind her. She'd built a (mostly) happy, productive life for herself. However, when she dies in a car accident under mysterious circumstances, she finds herself back in her teenage body, running off to save Edward from the Volturi with Alice. Over and over again.
Relationships: Alice Cullen & Bella Swan, Aro & Bella Swan, Aro/Bella Swan, Past Edward Cullen/Bella Swan - Relationship
Comments: 45
Kudos: 337





	1. before ...

**Author's Note:**

> I love time loop stories, and I realized I hadn't seen many Twilight loops. I had this idea--what if Bella had to relive her Volturi day over and over again? What would that do to her character? From there it morphed into--what would happen if an older, more jaded, left-by-the-Cullens Bella had to relive it? 
> 
> I should warn, I don't know if this is comedy or drama, or both, or even where exactly it's going for sure. I will post when I can. Some things are written, others not .... we'll see what happens.

Isabella Swan, age 29, Associate Professor of Literature, wants to swear. She does not. The snow-laden pines move past with the reasonable, responsible pace she's set. She's a safe driver, no speed demon (unlike some). 

Bella is calm. She is. It's just that she dislikes returning to Forks. 

No, not strong enough. But the language she would like to use is in a not-calm zone, and she? Is calm. 

How long had it been? A decade? Since the worst of it, the bad times (that missing grayed-out period. They'd given her drugs because they were afraid she'd zombie out again. You were just a kid …). 

The sky is grey all around, pregnant with the next freezing drizzle to coat the road with black ice. Bella shrugs against the tension in her neck, keeps her eyes on the road. These days she dislikes danger.

Bella knows she should have waited. Why was she so compelled to do this now? Her eyes flitted to the box beside her, then away. 

(White draped trees, guests even paler, the look on his face just before--).

It was the last thing, that was all. The last thing in a list Bella had thought long ago completed. Check, check, check. Nice and tidy.

It's not that the old memories are that bad, anymore, Bella thinks. She'd long ago realized that she'd dodged a bullet with Edward. Beautiful, uptight, controlling Edward. Her gatekeeper, swinging the keys to immortality like a twisted St. Peter. 

(She'd convinced herself they would be happy. She, who had compared herself to Juliet.) 

If he had stayed …. Rarely, Bella wonders what would have happened. 

“This is stupid,” she says, to no one. “Irrational. Nonsensical.”

She looks at the passengers seat, where the box sits. She turns the music up. Strong blaring rock, heavy on beat, light on lyrics. 

It's just an errand, that's all. A loose end.

She should just keep it. Put it back in her attic in the box with the too-expensive dress and those fucking heels and she should have burnt them all ten years ago, made a huge bonfire on the beach and let someone else dig the enormous rock out of the charred ashes. 

She hadn't thought, at the time. It was probably the pills. Someone had kept it, shoved it away, and forgotten it. Renee? She'd been furious, so maybe. Then Bella went on to live her life, and found it again. A diamond necklace in a box. A wedding present from the Volturi.

Fast forward, she was on her way to drop it off at the doorstep of the Cullen's abandoned house. Then to escape to her new life, alone.

Let them deal with it whenever they showed up. The year 2900: Hey, remember that girl? The human. Bella? Well …

Oh, how much she did not want to do this. Maybe ... 

No. She wasn't a thief. She was going to grit her teeth, do the thing, and then go home. Then she was going to clean out her attic. Burn some things in the backyard. 

Sometimes Bella wonders why they (the Volturi, or maybe Jasper) hadn't killed her, why she was left alone to go to college, get degrees, settle in one place. It wasn't as if she were hard to find. At first, she'd expected it. 

She wondered, sometimes, why they hadn't killed her. Year after year passed, and slowly, she'd begun to assume that the Cullens had arranged things, somehow.

In Italy, they'd offered her a choice, not that she'd taken it seriously. Edward was her only choice, back then. 

Almost there. Twenty miles until the turn off to the gravel road that served as the Cullen's driveway. Bella slows down in the heavier falling snow so she won't miss it. Her car skids on a curve as she hits the brakes. It's getting icier. 

Going over a bridge, through a gap in the trees, the view of a river dominates, blackish-blue in the fading light. Bella's eyes narrow, trying to place a flash of white along the bank. Frowning, she dismisses it-- 

The vehicle twists and shudders as it runs over something, skids to the side,wrenching the small car horribly. The front end slams underneath a tree trunk—how--and crumples around her. 

Bella breathes harshly in the stopped car. The music is still playing full blast. Across the street, a small pale figure stands, unnaturally still. Vampire.

Bella blinks. There is blood in her eyes. There's something heavy and sharp in her lap, and it feels wet in a way that means—her mind slides off what it could mean or how she knows--but when she bends her head to look down, the world twists off-kilter and the pain ... 

There's no one around. Vampire. There isn't much traffic here at night. No one will come.

With her arm, she reaches out to her purse, and this hurts too, but not as much. Her blood-slimy grip causes the purse to slide to the floor, out of reach. Bella blinks at it, and knows it's out of reach. 

So, she thinks. So. “Thusly ends my nice, human life.” She finds herself giggling. Her head feels so light … “On the way to the Cullen's, no less.”

The wooden box from the passenger seat has been thrown closer, unlike her purse, and Bella pulls it toward her Her fingers wedge the box open, leaving red trails, and there it is. The diamond is as beautiful, ridiculous, enormous, as it had been the first time she'd viewed it. A gift she'd never understood. Her fingers pull it out by the diamond setting and curl around, smearing blood on the clear gemstone as she feels its cool weight. 

Some time passes—how long? Nobody comes to eat her—maybe she was wrong. The snowfall is dense now, and her vision is hazy. The music dies, as does her headlights. It's utterly silent and he car is being covered by snow—she'll be so easy to miss here on the side of the road. 

Bella looks at the necklace again, and laughs. It sounds like a gurgle. With one hand, she slips the necklace over her head. Somehow, it seems fitting.

Bella dies there, in the cold, gripping the stone. Across the street, the pale figure disappears.


	2. .day one.

.day one.

Bella shrieks herself awake. Her hands jerk to brace for an impact that has, in more than once sense, already happened. Her eyes fly open. 

“Oh my God! What the … what ...” Her breathing is coming is small, ragged gasps, and her heart is hammering in her chest.

A cold hand rests on her arm like an icy manacle, and Bella shrieks in fright. The hand shakes her, hard. “Bella, wake up. Bella!” The voice lowers to a hiss. “You're drawing attention.”

Bella looks at the person attached to the pale arm and nearly screams again. “Oh my God,” she repeats. “Oh my--”

“Bella, stop!” The beautiful face twists in frustrated concern. “It's me, Alice. Calm down.”

“I ...” Bella trails off, astonished. One minute, she was in her car, that much she remembers. Driving to Forks in the snow, and then … she was bleeding. Now … “Am I dead?”

“What?” Pretend-Alice seems baffled by this perfectly obvious question.

Bella tries to work it out. “Maybe ... it's some kind of hallucination? Brain bleed from the accident causing my mind to … whatever this is? Or … a coma?” Bella shakes her head. “I hope it's not a coma. I mean, this obviously isn't real, but … Oh God. Unless I really am dead?” She shudders. “I am dead, aren't I.” Bella stares hard at Alice. “Are you, like, my guide, taking on ...?” She flaps her hand at Alice expressively. “Is that it? ”

“What?”

“Although, really, Alice Cullen? I wouldn't have expected that.”

Alice makes a frustrated sound. “Bella, this is no time for jokes!” There's something in her voice that stops Bella. Desperation? Bella stares at her silently. 

Finally, she says. “Sorry … Alice?”

“Honestly.” Faux-Alice huffs, but seems placated by this and smiles. “You were just having a nightmare, Bella. Obviously.”

Bella looks around, utterly lost. They're on a large, darkened airplane, the kind with two rows instead of one. The long-trip-type airplane. Around them, people are sleeping, some awake with their faces artificially lit by their devices. In the background there's the hum of large engines. “I'm …” Bella shakes her head. “I might be a little … confused?”

“You're fine, Bella.” Alice sighs. “I just hope Edward will be.”

“Ed—Edward?” Bella grimaces in confusion. Why does this all seem so familiar?  
The scene, the smell of recycled air and airplane meals, Alice.

“We'll arrive soon,” Alice says distantly, her mind occupied. “You should probably use the lavatory. We'll need to move quickly.”

The feeling of _deja vu_ hits Bella again, and Bella blinks, once again utterly confounded by Alice, of all possibilities, being here, with her. Wherever here is, She's about to ask where they are going, when the pilot begins talking over the loudspeaker in both English and Italian. 

He's welcoming them to Italy. 

12345

There's a weird ringing in Bella's ears and a kind of detached haze in her mind, because something is wrong. It's impossible and it's also true: She's eighteen again. Apparently, she's gone back eleven years in her life to live—this, of all things, this—again. The facts (assuming she's not in a coma, which, now that she has the lay of the land of Crazyville, is seeming more attractive than previous): One: Her hair is long again. Professor-Adult-Predelusions Bella had a lob. Two: The scar she got when she was twenty and got hit in the face with a steel caraibiner from a book bag is missing. Three (the most relevant): She's headed toward Volterra fucking Italy again in a stolen Porsche at at least 100 mph.

Bella is sitting beside a covered-up vampire she used to consider her BFF. Her mind is spinning its wheels and getting nowhere. 

Outside Bella's brain, they speed through the countryside, stop just inside Volterra, and Alice pushes her out of the car. Bella pauses, confused. The sun, the stonework of the buildings the red cloaks: It's just as she experienced it before. Then Alice barks an order to hurry and Bella does, just like before, flying up the narrow hill in her Converse and jeans, pushing through the crowded streets of scarlet robed festival-goers. She runs around the corner, up the alleyway full of stairs, up the hill. She pushes through the people in red cloaks carrying a litter in procession, runs again. There's a smell of wood smoke in the air from somewhere, and something savory from a cart she springs past that's selling food. She cuts through the fountain, and there he is, just like before. She springs over to slam into Edward Cullen just as he's about to step into the sun. 

There, for a moment, she forgets all of her questions and she just looks at him. 

Logically, she knows he's just the same, but … God, had he always looked so impossibly young? She is struck speechless for a moment. White flowers hanging from above, Edward in that expensive suit, so radiant as he watches her come up the aisle. Everything is perfect … She wants so badly to die for him. 

A familiar bitterness, minimized by time but never completely gone, makes itself known to Bella then, a choking feeling in her upper throat, a tightness in her jaw and eyes. All of that, she thinks, all of that weeping and self-recrimination for this antique teenager. 

She blinks and struggles to focus on the here and now—whatever that means--the cool stone at her back, the dust motes hanging in bright sun shining through the archway to the square. Her mind catches up with her. They're in Volterra, and they should leave before the guards come. But her runaway vampire almost-husband is babbling about being in the afterlife. 

“Edward,” she says, cutting him off. “Edward, stop. We have to go now.” 

“Aro wishes to speak with you again,” a voice says, and from the shadow of the hallway two figures appear. 

12345

The domed room is cold and cavernous, imposing. Sunshine streaks in from the windows above, fading and brightening as clouds pass in the sky outside. It's all happening as before—what Bella does remember. The first time, she'd been a terrified teenager, certain she would die. Willing to die, if it would save Edward. She'd had nightmares where he had been ripped apart by the Volturi, nightmares where purple smoke filled the air in the gaping space and choked her lungs, right before they killed Alice, and, in those dreams, it was all her fault. 

She would wake up screaming. Not because she had died, but because they had.

This time, Bella reflects, she might not even be alive. She's still not certain. Still, all things considered, Bella thinks she'd really rather not die. She doesn't want Edward to be killed, or Alice, but she no longer thinks his life is more important than her own. 

Aro is a revelation—how had she not noticed? He stalks toward them, arms flung out, tailored suit, and Bella can't help but admire his grace and power. 

Bella is very aware of him when he takes her hand and pulls her toward him. Their eyes meet and then break as he bows his head to listen. She feels a frisson of something electric pass through her—had she noticed it before? She can't remember. Bella can't help but wonder: how many women has he listened to who couldn't help their wandering minds? The idea is strangely enthralling. 

For just a moment, she thinks he must know her thoughts. Their eyes meet, hold. Then Aro slides her hand from his dry, firm grip. He hears nothing. 

The Volturi are more reasonable than she remembered. It's Edward who seems to keep yelling, overreacting, and generally getting in the way. He demands that Bella is to remain human, she is to be left alone. Never mind their millennia-old secret. 

Bella watches Aro and wonders if it's his age that gives him the patience for this—or is it his love of the drama? For he's clearly performing. Waiting for something. Without her sacrifice, Bella realizes, she's probably more likely to die. Internally, she debates … can she bring herself to do it? Mean it? Bit then, as before, Alice steps forward. “Bella will be one of us,” she says. “I've seen it.” She adds, “I'll turn her myself.”

 _Liar._ Maybe Alice means it, though, in the moment. 

Bella watches them share a vision of a life she'll never actually have. 

Then Edward is grabbing her arm and they're hurrying away. Before Bella knows it, they've boarded a plane and Bella falls asleep from sheer exhausted confusion. 

_When I wake up_ , she promises herself, _All of this will make sense. Somehow._


	3. .day two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's worth mentioning that I'm drawing from both movie and book canon here. The Aro in my head is the movie version. That said, I like how in the book version, he asks Bella if she will join them. So, I decided to use both.  
> Update times will vary, sometimes wildly. Ask me no questions and I will tell you no lies ....  
> If you have any requests for something Bella does in one of the loops, feel free to mention it. I have some days written, and some ideas, but I'm always interested in ideas.

.day two.

Bella wakes slowly, her brain strangely tired. Fuzzily, she wonders, _Do I have a class today?_ With a start, she remembers that she's on a plane home, with vampires. Again. But maybe she was dreaming? She turns her head to the side, and there's Alice, pale as ever. No, not dreaming. 

Interesting, though: when she went to sleep, Edward was sitting beside her. They must have changed seats. 

Bella yawns and stretches. “How much longer?” 

“They should be landing soon.”

Bella blinks. “I slept for a while, then.” It was eleven hours to JFK and their connecting flight to Sea-Tac, she remembers. She cranes her neck to look around. The cabin is dark, so she can't see well. “Where's Edward?”

Finally, Alice turns her head to look at Bella. “I haven't seen anything new.” She frowns. “If only Rosalie hadn't … “ she sighs. “There's no point. I just hope we get there in time.”

Bella shakes her head, confused. Rosalie? What's she done this time? She's distracted by the way her hair moves around her, and isn't that strange, to have long hair again. She plans to cut it once she gets to Forks again. And hopefully handle Charlie better this time around. 

It's surreal. She gets the chance to do everything all over again. 

The pilot chooses this moment to announce their flight is going to be landing, just like Alice said. In Italy. 

And suddenly, Bella knows exactly where Edward is. 

12345

For lack of a better idea, Bella follows the script, as much as she can. She still listens to Alice, still runs to save Edward. The best she can figure is that she actually is dead, bled out in the car accident. Before, she hadn't really thought about a God, had probably learned toward Him/Her not existing on the rare times that she had, but, well. This experience is hard to explain any other why than “afterlife” (and not the upstairs, pearly-gates version).

So she runs through the fountain, gets her socks wet, and saves a teen vamp from the bloodsucker police. 

“Bella,” Edward croons into her hair. Reverent. Maybe, Bella considers, she's actually an extra in Edward's afterlife. A bit player. It would kind of make sense, in the context of their relationship. 

Then he kisses her. She'd forgotten about that, somehow—last time, she'd pulled back before it happened. She jerks away awkwardly. 

“Um, right, guess what, I'm, uh, alive. Possibly.” Bella sighs, wanting to leave before the Volturi arrive again. The problem is, Edward's like an undead limpet. He keeps stepping closer and touching her while she shuffles away. It'd be funny, if it weren't so frustrating. 

Bella clears her throat. “So now you know? Right? No need for the suicide by cop.” Bella shifts uncomfortably. “Well, good to see you? I should go.”

Edward stares at her, saying nothing. Finally, Bella waves awkwardly.“Um, okay. Bye.” 

“It's a little late for that.”

Bella whirls toward the two shadows. Demetri and Felix, she recalls. Felix had seemed pretty eager to eat her, last time.

“You're here already?” Bella snaps her mouth shut, realizing what she's just said. 

“Bella, stand behind me,” Edward says. “There's no need for your services, gentlemen. We were just leaving.”

Bella doesn't bother to obey him—it didn't work last time. There's no point. She ignores Edward's pointed look, and pulls back from his reaching hand. Had he always tried to manhandle her like that? She has a sinking feeling that the answer is yes, and she just hadn't noticed. 

_Man, I was a stupid teenager. Controlling, grabby … wonderful, Bella, really._

“Bella--”

“I'd rather not meet my fate cowering behind you, Edward,” Bella says. She looks him in the eye, but says it without anger. He's trying to help. 

Edward stares at her, brow furrowed, and Bella shrugs just as Alice breaks in, Jane appears, and the whole thing starts over. 

12345

Bella had thought, last night, that this whole bizarre situation would give her a second chance at her young adult years, this time minus the teen-wedding-cum-dumped-at-the-altar thing.

Now, she's not sure. Of anything, really. 

The room is still imposing, and that drain is just disgusting. Bella is feeling detached, like a person after something traumatic—which isn't wrong—so she just walks through her cues, dialing it in. 

But then there's Aro, again. He seems to be the only solid thing. 

He gtabs her hand, pulls her close, and she stares at the top of his head as he bows over her hand in concentration. The feel of his skin is textured like expensive filament paper. His grip is firm. Bella wonders, if she touches Aro's hair, would the guard rip off her arm? She bites her lip. No, they'd likely just eat her. 

“--join us?” Bella blinks, disoriented. She's missed something. Every vampire in the room is looking at her. 

“What?” she says stupidly. _Good going, Bella._

“I asked if you would join us, dearest.” Aro seems to speak to everyone like an indulgent parental figure. Right up until he kills them. 

“Oh.” Bella considers the question. Last time, she'd just said, “No, tank you,” as she had originally. The love-sick Bella would never have left Edward. But now … What would happen if she said yes? She wonders. 

“Bella!” Alice cries in alarm. Almost simultaneously, Edward yells, “No, Bella!”

Bella sighs. “Tempting, but I'll pass. Thanks, though.”

The whole thing resumes. Edward postures, Alice saves the day.  
Everything continues as normal. 

On the plane, Bella falls asleep, wondering. What if she had said yes?


	4. .day three.

.day three.

The idea of saying “yes” to Aro—that is, to the Volturi—lingers in Bella's mind. Once again, she's on the airplane, beside Alice, and, surprise, they're rushing off to rescue a century-plus-year-old vampire. 

It's really beginning to seem like nothing she does has any impact. No matter what happens, it appears, at the end of the day, she resets, heading to Europe with Alice. It's baffling, and there seems to be no obvious end in sight. 

Bella wonders how long it will take before she goes insane, then shoves the thought away. This won't continue. Surely. 

She sits in the car, staring out into the Tuscan countryside, and realizes that she could, theoretically, do anything at all. If this day continues to repeat, then no matter what she does, no matter how weird or inappropriate or ill-advised … it will be erased, as if it never happened. 

Maybe that insanity thought wasn't so far off, after all.

Bella chastises herself. If this ends, then she'd be stuck with whatever she did, and she has no way to know if that will happen—suppose she got Edward killed through her inaction? 

_And?_ A tiny part of her brain asks. Bella forces it away. She isn't the same love-struck Bella, that's true. That doesn't mean she wants Edward to die. 

_Even after what he did to you?The humiliation? The way people in Forks still look at you?_

Bella grimaces. Maybe that's why she's repeating this, so that she won't have to go though it all—the arguments, the manipulation into a wedding she didn't even want--this time around. Assuming, of course, she can get through this day. 

They race through passport control, the airport bar and gift shop. Alice steals the same car every time. Bella looks at Alice as she's driving. They're going at least 200kph down the two-lane highway. “Alice?”

“Hm?”

“What are the Volturi like?” The car swerves around a tractor, the same one that's always there halfway to Volterra. Alice looks at her instead of the road, which makes Bella grimace. 

“They're … complicated, I suppose.” Alice's voice is hesitant.

“Complicated how?”

“Bella, you don't need to worry, okay? Everything will be fine, as long as we catch Edward in time.”

Bella frowns. That wasn't what she was getting at. “I mean, are they all employees there? Or are they a family, like you guys?” She frowns. “They're not … slaves, surely.”

Alice has a weird look on her face, and Bella senses she needs to keep going. “I mean, I'm just trying to understand what we're walking into. You know,” she says, “to save Edward.”

_Smooth, Bella._

Alice relaxes. They're entering the streets of Volterra now. Narrow streets, check. Red cloaks everywhere, check. 

“I guess you could think of them more like a royal court than a business. Not employees. Not slaves. Everyone has a position and a purpose. They've all been together for a very long time, of course. Much longer than our family. I guess they're more of a traditional coven. Not really a family, although some of them are … or were.” 

“Were?” But now they're here, and there's no more time for questions. Alice urges her out, and Bella's running. She slides on a slippery patch going up the hill, trips over her own sneaker, and falls heavily on one knee. Pain lances up her leg, and Bella knows without looking that she's torn her jeans, but somehow she keeps going with only a slight hobble. 

Bella slams into Edward—again—but then, abruptly, Bella finds herself flying backward. Her back slams against the stone, knocking the wind from her lungs with a painful _woosh_. Edward's on top of her with an iron grip, pressing her backward with unyielding strength to the wall. There's an intense pain in her neck, her throat, she feels something along her ribs snap and give way, agony--He's drinking her blood, and he shows no sign of stopping. 

Bella can't move, can barely even thrash against him, against the pain and it's worse, so much worse than James because it's Edward—how does he not know who she is? Or not care? Both the venom and Bella's blood loss are painful and Bella's woozier by the second. Behind Edward's back, she sees the Volturi guard. Felix rips Edward off of her, casually, with one hand. 

“Thanks,” Bella whispers, clutching the slippery wet mess of her neck. For the first time, she realizes how cold it is. She's wet from the fountain and, shivering, watching blood dripping onto the stones in a daze. So this is how it ends.

Felix has been holding Edward, who seems to abruptly realize what he's done, and to whom. “Bella! The venom! I need to--”

“Quiet, Cullen. You can yell after we get your human to the masters.”

“Not a human for long,” the other vampire says, chuckling darkly, and Edward is freaking out for real now, but Bella doesn't watch. She's busy watching her blood leave her body. How long does she have? A half hour? Maybe less?

_Do something._

“Bandage,” Bella gurgle-whispers. The room is spinning like it did the night she got her Master's degree after six rounds of B52 shots, and Bella's whole chest is on fire. To one side, she sees Alice break in through the iron door. 

“Bella! Here.” Alice winds her scarf around Bella's throat in some kind of maneuver that hurts like hell. “Don't touch it,” Alice cautions. Her face is twisted against the smell of Bella's blood. “I saw it too late. I'm so sorry.”

There's a lot of talking, but Bella can't make it out. Her legs buckle, and she whimpers when her knee hits the brick again. She topples to her side before Alice catches her. Distantly, Bella notices that the skin of her knee is torn. 

“Oh,” So that's what happened. It strikes Bella as absurd that she would bleed around Edward after her disastrous 18th birthday party landed Edward here in the first place.

Jane arrives, and they move too fast for Bella to see much. Not that she's looking. Alice is carrying her, and the pain in Bella's neck is becoming all-consuming … for a while, she only registers snippets. 

“... call Carlisle?”

“Maybe it's not too late … Phoenix?”

“She can't be. … my fault!”

“... the Masters ...”

She's laid down on something hard and cold, and when she blinks her eyes, someone enters her field of vision. “Hello, Bella,” Aro says. “This is a trying day for you, I fear.”

“Hurts,” Bella says. Her voice is a wet rasp. “Dying.”

“Yes, dear one. You're becoming a vampire. It hurts very much, I know.” Aro smiles at her, and his faded red eyes scan her body. He _tsks_ like a disappointed father. “Poor Edward quite lost control with you, I think.” Aro's paper-matte cool hands take one of Bella's own. His cold is a balm against the rapidly-spreading fire in Bella's body. “Do you want to be one of us, Bella? We could stop the change, if you like.”

Bella nods weakly. Despite everything, the answer to that question has never changed. “Live.” 

Aro grins, like she's pleased him. “That's what I thought. And after Edward tried so very hard to keep you human.” He closes his eyes over Bella's hand. 

“Bella, no--” There's an fierce animal sound behind Bella that's abruptly cut off. Beside Aro, Alice appears, but she says nothing. Her eyes seek and hold Bella's in silent sympathy.

There are more sounds of fighting, but they're becoming distant now. Aro looks up, and he laughs, a manic sound completely at odds with anything currently happening. “Nothing!” he exclaims. “Wonderful! You are a mystery to me, young Bella.”

“You have pretty hair,” Bella says, and passes out. 

When Bella comes to, all she can think of is the pain. It's Medieval torture, being boiled in acid. It's the kind of pain from which you don't emerge the same—or entirely sane. Alice is there, and she looks alarmed by something. Bella closes her eyes. She's trying not to scream. Trying. Trying.

Then silence.


	5. .day four.

.day four.

 _I'll open my eyes now_ , Bella thinks, _and I'll be in Seattle, not a teenager, and all of this will have been a terrible dream._

She opens her eyes, and no such luck: there's Alice, in a first class seat, right beside her. Bella looks down at her arm, which appears to be normal human flesh. She stares into the darkness, and feels no particular urge to drink the blood of the humans around her. _Not a vampire. Not dead._

“Do you feel,” Bella asks, “like there's anything familiar about all of this?” 

Alice doesn't answer right away. “You mean, like _deja vu?”_

“Sort of?” 

“My gift means that lots of things are familiar, Bella, since I see them before I live them.”

“Wow.” Bella wonders how she'd never considered that before. “So it's kind of like you're repeating the same thing, all the time, then.”

Alice gracefully half-shrugs. “The important things, sure. I have to consider different options, and how they'll play out.”

“How do you stay sane?”

“I'm used to it.” She smiles slightly. “Want to hear a secret? Sometimes I purposely imagine bizarre decisions, just to freak Edward out with the consequences in my head.” Alice's shoots her an impish smile. “Edward is my brother, but sometimes ...”

“He overreacts?”

“I was going to say, he's a little Victorian, but yes. Jasper was born before him, and he's way less uptight.” Alice sobers. “You've changed, Bella. “

Bella briefly considers telling Alice what's going on. Instead, she forces a smile. “Well, I am a teenager. Growing and changing all the time. Hormones. Etcetera.” 

“No, it's more than that, I think.” Alice gives her a thoughtful look. “You've matured, yes, but … you would never have agreed with me about Edward before. You were always just as wrapped up in the drama as he was. Before.” 

Luckily, the pilot chooses that moment to announce their landing into Pisa, and since it's in two languages, it takes a while. By the time he's done, the subject has passed. 

Bella looks over at Alice. It's odd, she thinks, how you can forget about someone that you'd once missed so much. Maybe, Bella considers, it wasn't so much of a forgetting as it was shoving all of them into a box and hiding it away. After all, what else could she have done?

Abruptly, she decides to ask. “Alice … why didn't you call me? When you were gone? Or email? ” _And why did I believe you wouldn't do it again?_

A silence descends between them. Slowly, Alice's smile fades. “I … look, Bella, I know that we hurt you. But I promise if we get through this, I'll explain.”

Bella nods, even though she no longer knows what “out of this” means when it comes to her, or if it will ever happen. 

“I promise, we never meant to ...” Alice gestures vaguely, “have this happen. We all thought he would stop being so melodramatic and come to his senses.” 

Bella can't help but smile a little sadly. “If you knew it would work out, why didn't you tell me you were leaving?”

Alice grimaces. “We were forbidden.”

“By who, Carlisle?” 

“Kind of. We do this thing were we have a discussion, it's supposed to be democratic, but ...” Alice sighs, “the problem is, Edward can sway the table. Preempt arguments. He was insistent that it would be easier on you. Then, once Carlisle agreed, we voted. I could have done it anyway, but I wasn't sure they weren't right. If we had stayed in contact, you might have had a harder time moving on.” Alice gives her a sad smile. “Edward can be stubborn. It could have taken years.” 

Bella doesn't understand, not really. It's hard for her to imagine giving up on someone just based on someone ease's opinion. Maybe it's because she's human. It made it easier to let her go. After all, she would die soon, anyway. “It was worse once I had the dress,” she muses, “and the cake. The guests. That took years.”

Alice shakes her head, and no wonder: Bella is talking about something that hasn't even happened. Nor will it ever, if Bella has any say in it. 

“I don't know what's happened to you, Bella, but I promise it'll work out.”

_Not with Edward, it won't._

12345

Alice steals the car and they race toward Volterra in silence. Bella stares out of the window for a while, ruminating on the farce that her life has become. Then it just hits her: Edward _killed_ her. He didn't mean to, of course, but does that really matter? 

Teenage Bella would have said: yes, of course. Adult Bella, well … 

“Alice, you're going to have to do things this round. I'm not up for it.”

“Things?” Alice says blankly. 

“You know,” Bella says, waving a hand vaguely toward the windshield, “the whole keeping Edward from public sparkling business. I just can't be fucked to do it again.” The profanity tastes strange in Bella's mouth. She can't decide if she likes it. 

Alice's hands squeeze the steering wheel, and the sound of protesting metal fills the car. “Bella, what are you talking about? Again? Saving Edward is the whole reason you came!” 

_When I was eighteen._ Abruptly, Bella realizes how stupid this is. “You said I was the only one he wouldn't hear, right?”

“Yes,” Alice says patiently. “That's why Edward needs you to stop him, Bella.”

“Why can't he hear you, though?” Bella asks. “What did you see?”

“He speeds it up. If I try, he'll go out before mid-day.”

“What happens,” Bella asks, “if you tell him that I'm alive? That Rosalie was wrong? That the funeral was for someone else?” _That this isn't a community theater production of Romeo and Juliet._

Alice goes still, and her eyes glaze over. Then she shakes her head. “He doesn't believe me.”

“What if,” she says, “it you told him ...” Bella tries to think of something only he would know, “ … that he was a very stupid lion?”

This time, after Alice goes still—and almost rams them into the trailer on the road—she beams. “That should work! I can't believe I didn't think of that before.” 

Bella wants to face palm. They enter the city, Alice opens the door, and then she's gone. 

Red cloaks surround the car. The police are approaching, waving their arms, so Bella grabs her and Alice's bags and makes a run for it. People jostle her left and right, but Bella doesn't stop until she's sure she's lost herself in the overwhelming crowd. She leans against the side of a stone building and gasps for air. Alice's leather Prada weekender is heavy, especially with her own backpack on one of her shoulders. Bella looks down at it and scoffs: the cost of the bag was probably more than twice what Charlie paid for her old red pickup truck. 

Normally, Bella would never go through someone's personal belongings. Being stuck in time seems like a special case in degrading morals, though, so Bella shrugs and unzips the thick cream leather satchel.

The leather is buttery soft against her fingertips. Bella has never owned any purse so nice. Not when she was a kid, a student, or even when she became a professor. Inside, there's no fewer than three pairs of sunglasses, each a name brand, a pair of colored contact lenses (dark brown), blush, five different tubes of lipstick in various shades, a change of clothes, and … a mailing envelops stuffed full of cash. 

Bella stares at it and stifles the slightly ashamed feeling that comes up by reflex. Instead, she peers into the folded paper package. And gapes There are US dollars and Euros together in two rubber-banded stacks, each about the length of her pinky finger. 

Carefully, Bella closes the envelope and opens Alice's wallet. There are ID and credit cards in the name of Alice Cullen, card slots bristling with what look to be an insane number of credit cards. Even more cash, another mix of currencies, this time shoved haphazardly into the cash slot at the back. 

Bella replaces everything carefully, then gets up and wanders off into the square, thinking. 

12345

Bella goes through the shops surrounding the square, browsing aimlessly through postcards, green, white, and red fridge magnets shaped like flags, snow globes that say “ _Italia._ ” The air feels cool and she wonders why she didn't travel more, in her adult life, when she was blissfully sparkle-free. She buys herself—well, Alice buys her--a bright red scarf and winds it around her neck in a fit or irony. 

All in all, it's a much better day than the day—well, not before. The guards find her in an outdoor cafe after sundown. The lights are on around the square. It's a beautiful evening. Bella's sipping espresso, eating a pastry from the glass case that she'd pointed to at random. Something with layers of hazelnut that nearly makes her moan. Her new crimson scarf is soft around her throat and she's humming an Italian pop song that'd been playing in one of the shops. 

A throat clears next to her table, and Bella looks up. It's Felix and Demetri, menacing vibe going full force.

Bella takes a bite of pastry. After she swallows, she says, “I don't suppose I can finish? This is really good.”

They drag her into the clock tower, to the same place where Edward just ripped her throat out. 

“You smell divine. Maybe I'll get to eat you later,” Demetri tells her, slamming her casually into the wall. Bella lands where she's placed. 

“Way too good for a deer-sucker,” Felix agrees, and Bella snorts in amusement. 

“That's funny, is it?” Demetri cocks his head at her. 

“You could eat me now,” Bella says, digging into her bag for a piece of chocolate. It's from the same shop as the scarf, and came in tiny gold wrappers. The foil packaging makes a crinkling sound as she unwraps one and slides it into her mouth. “Make hay while the sun shines, and all that. _Carpe Diem_.” 

Felix snorts. “Figures she would be suicidal.”

“Maybe I'm just frightened to see your bosses,” Bella offers. “Or Edward.”

“Nobody's scared of Edward,” Demetri says, flatly. “Also, this will be our last _dies_ if we disobey our orders. So you have a choice, Bella Swan.”

“Which is?”

“Walk or be carried.”

Bella sighs. “Which is better for you?”

“I dislike human pace,” Felix says. “Also, I despise carrying humans.”

“I'll go with dislike.”

12345

The massive room is as always, although the vampires seem testier than Bella's last foray into the cavernous room. Aro is bent over Edward's hand, and the latter vampire's head turns sharply as she is escorted inside. He looks haunted, desperate: Bella finds herself indifferent, which is more or less understandable, since he did kill her just a few hours ago. 

Bella walks up to stand beside Alice. “What did I miss?”

Through her teeth, Alice whispers, “Aro was discussing Edward's plans.”

“Oh, for me?”

Alice nods curtly; she's watching Aro and Edward under he lashes. Bella says, “The 'he doesn't ever want to turn me, not ever', plan?”

“That one, yes.”

Aro releases Edward's hand. “Such a shame,” he murmurs. “Are you certain you won't reconsider?” 

Edward looks over at Bella. “I will not,” he says, with all the repressed anguish an immortal teenage vampire can muster. 

“Right,” Bella says. “This again. Hey, Edward.”

Edward flits to stand beside her, too close, and grabs her hand, too tightly. “Bella,” he says. “You're here.”

Bella tries to remove her hand, and fails. “Well,” she says, pointedly, “even though we'd broken up, I didn't want you to die.”

Edward doesn't release her hand. If anything, he seems to leans a little closer. “Bella, I--” Edward cuts off at Aro's approach. The ancient vampire is watching their interplay avidly. He glides up to stand before her, and Bella takes a moment to look him over. He has charisma, Bella decides. Presence. She wonders if it's his age.

He clasps his hands together. “Bella is alive after all! How utterly unsurprising.” 

Bella holds her free hand over her moth to stifle her laugh. Alice coming first changed things, it seems. Bella finds it strangely reassuring that the Volturi, too, can be changed by events. 

Aro smiles at her, ignoring Edward's glare, and Bella finds herself smiling back. This time, when he takes her hand, he tugs her closer than ever before, away from Edward, who is forced to relinquish her other hand. Aro pulls her toward him until their chests are almost touching. 

Surely, Bella thinks, this sort of thing wasn't proper when he was growing up. They're so close then, when Aro bends his head, her lips are nearly against his neck. Her other, Edward-abused hand, moves up to steady herself, curling around his shoulder. It's solid underneath the smooth fabric of his suit. 

“You smell even better than young Edward remembered,” Aro says, his voice filling her ear. Dazedly, Bella wonders what would happen if she were just to move a little bit--

“Bella!” Edward shouts. Bella shakes her head, but it serves its purpose, which is to break the—whatever that was—and remind her of where, exactly, she is. Aro's lips curve upward at her, an acknowledgment. Of what, Bella isn't sure.

“I see nothing,” he says, which is strange, since Bella's pretty sure he never closed his eyes. Perhaps Aro doesn't need to, in order to use his gift.

Aro steps back, but doesn't release her hand. “In all my years,” he says, “this is a first. One who thwarts my gift. How utterly maddening. And fascinating.” He turns his head. “Wouldn't you agree, Edward?”

“Yes,” Edward says, in a strangled voice. “And now you know everything. So let's get on with it so we can go home.”

“We,” Aro muses, and finally lets go of Bella's hand, although he doesn't move further away. Edward looks like he really wishes he would. “That's an interesting word choice, since dear Bella indicated you were no longer together. And, in fact, from your memories, I remember vividly the lengths to which you went to sever your ties. Very self sacrificing.”

“I did it to protect her.” 

Bella's heart hurts a little, hearing this. She had loved Edward, once. Obsessively, unhealthily, but he was her first love, and remembering that black time in her life, how it had improved, only to--

“What if I didn't want to be protected? What if I wanted to be with you forever?” Bella's a little surprised that she said that out loud. 

“You don't know what that means, Bella. It was better for me to leave.”

“You're kind of a control freak, Edward. Also, you were wrong. Not that it matters now.”

Aro's eyebrows raise. “You don't want to be with him forever, Bella?”

“I did,” Bella admits. “But he didn't want forever from me. He only wanted to be human again.” It hurts to admit that, a little, even after all this time. 

“You see, Edward?”

Whatever Edward reads in Aro's mind must alarm him, because, once again, he starts to get panicky. “Bella, no, please, you don't understand!”

Aro stares at her for a long, pregnant moment. It's impossible to know what he's thinking. Is he debating decorating the walls with her blood? Is he still surprised at her ability to block his gift? He turns toward Felix, and makes a small gesture. There's a blur, and Felix and Demetri each have one of Edward's arms. 

Aro has a strange look on his face. “Tell me, Isabella, would you like to join us?”

For her, it's just the two of them there. His faded red eyes meet her own brown, and Bell's awash with confusion: this isn't how the script goes. Aro is supposed to ask Alice, then Edward, and then her. Also, he hasn't mentioned Jane at all. 

“I would,” Bella finds herself saying, heedless of Edward completely losing his mind behind her. “I don't think it'll work, though.”

“Why ever not? Is it the bite that James gave you?” Aro seems genuinely curious.

Bella glances down at her wrist. She hadn't considered that, but of course he would have seen it, both on her and in Edward's mind. “Oh, that makes sense, but no. The thing is,” Bella takes a deep, shuddering breath, “I'm trapped in a time … thing. I'm reliving the same day, over and over again.”

Caius laughs scornfully. “Aro, this is lies or insanity. Either way, we should be rid of her.”

For a bare moment, Aro is perfectly still, his eyes boring into hers. Then, abruptly, his whole body seems to relax, as if he's decided something. He holds up one hand for Caius, and behind them, Alice makes a small, stifled sound. “Is that so, Isabeella? That must be ...” He smiles thinly, “...quite frustrating.”

Bella lifts a shoulder resignedly. “So far, it's mostly just confusing. I was bitten before, though, and I just woke up again. Today. So I'm not sure there's much use trying to turn me.”

“Truly? And who bit you?”

“Edward,” she says, at the same time as Alice does, but for different reasons.

Behind her, Edward breaks free of Felix's hold and suddenly, he's right there, reaching for her shoulder with what seems like extreme desperation. His hand reaches out at the same time she moves to one side, and Bella feels a sharp pain in her throat—again. 

In the corner of her eye, Bella sees her scarf fall, severed, into a small pile on the stone floor. The crimson silk is bloody.

When she can see what's happening, Aro has Edward by the throat, Felix has his arms, and Bella feels a familiar wetness down her front before Alice is there.

“I liked that scarf.” Bella manages. 

“It was a great scarf,” Alice says. “I'll get you a new one, okay?” She sounds panicked as she once again tries tying the painful knot from her own scarf over Bella's wound.

“Don't bother, Alice,” Bella says, but her words come out wet and mangled. Again. The room is already blurry. 

Alice stares at her desperately. “Was all of that true, Bella? About repeating today?”

Bella nods as much as she can. 

“I see. The fact that I don't know means I'm not repeating. Look,” Alice turns Bella's head and shakes her, just a little. Bella blinks against the blackness in her vision. “You know how I said I don't remember anything from my human life? That's a lie. I do remember one thing.” Alice takes a a deep, unnecessary breath. “I had a doll named Jasmine. I used to hide her in a tree trunk at the edge of the woods.”

Caius sighs gustily. “Charming. Could someone also please kill the Cullen boy also? His incessant moaning is getting tiresome.”

Ignoring him, Alice continues, “If you need me to believe you. Jasmine. Tree trunk. No one else knows that.” 

The cloying, coppery smell of Bella's own blood is overpowering. If she weren't dying, she might faint. The thought amuses her., in a distant kind of way 

On her other side, Aro leans over her. “Such a shame,” he murmurs. With one hand, he swipes along the ruin of her neck and brings it up to his mouth. With his red lips, the effect would be obscene if Bella weren't already slipping away. 

“Exquisite,” he says. It's the last thing Bella hears.


	6. .days five.six.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bella starts to go a little off the rails.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I messed up the date when posting the last chapter, but I think I have it figured out now. My playlist for writing this is on Spotify, if you like that kind of thing, it's [here.](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1pzWIWT6PT3EurNKHyJu93?si=qdgXoaiERFOsql4vgzHW5w)
> 
> I don't like explaining stories, but I will say, Bella loved Edward once. Being left by someone you care about as much as she did isn't something a person like her (sensitive, obsessive, at least in canon) gets over very soon. In my opinion, an older Bella moved on mainly by repressing what happened. She's over the idea of Edward as someone she wants to be with, but the pain he / they caused still resonates. I hope I show this here without seeming like she wants him back or something. Her mind is in other places (which should be obvious). 
> 
> Onward...

.day five.

 _Oh, hell no. This is so not happening again,_ Bella thinks, as soon as she's alive again. Which is really something someone should not be able to say about themselves, that they're alive again, in that they had actually died a moment before. Just … no. Bella doesn't know what's happening to her, but she does know one thing: she is so over this. 

With her eyes half open, Bella takes in the scene: airplane, darkness, Alice. With a trembling hand, hand, she reaches up presses the flight attendant button. 

The attendant comes, a woman who bears a passing resemblance to Gianna. 

“Can I help you?”

Bella speaks over Alice's shoulder. “I'd like a double vodka over ice, please.” Bella ignores Alice's sideways look. She's legal drinking age in Italy, and if anyone needs a drink right now, it's definitely her. 

The attendant reappears in the middle of Alice's predictable question, and hands Bella her order. Bella smiles at her and takes the plastic glass full of vodka like it's a small, precious baby.

“Is there anything else I can get you? Your friend?”

Bella takes a long gulp of the vodka. The burn feels deeply bracing. Bella's never been a drinker of anything other than the odd college beer and wine, but she can see why people like it: in the midst of her stress, it feel real like nothing else around does. The unreality of all of this makes Bella want to do something truly crazy. Something … really bad.

Bella considers. “No, but you should know I plan to blow up this plane. You know,” she takes another deep gulp. “With a bomb.” Demonstratively, she flicks her fingers outward, mimicking an explosion. 

Bella manages another last swig before she's pulled out of her seat by the Air Marshall. God bless post 9-11 travel protocols; they handcuff her to a seat near the exit by herself and then land the plane (sooner than they had before, which is kind of impressive). The tackling Marshall from the plane then drags her in cuffs through the tiny Pisa airport and into a room with only one window, which is mirrored. The room smells vaguely of Lysol.

Bella's staring into the mirrored window one minute, trying to remember everything she's heard about extreme rendition. She's been in the same room for hours and is starting to think, that's it, it's over. All she had to do was to get away from the vampires. 

The down side of it being over, of course, is that she'll have a criminal record for the rest of her life. Becoming a professor at a university is likely out for this go-round. 

On the bright side, Bella realizes, there are no vampires around whatsoever. Just a bunch of very humorless humans with badges. 

On the whole, it seems like a pretty fair trade, all things considered. Under the florescent lights, at the little table, in the metal chair, handcuffed to the metal shackle bolted to the floor, Bella takes one deep breath, then another, then another. In between the time from one exhale to another, she blinks … 

.day six.

… and the bright lights are gone, replaced by the darkness of a silent, peaceful airplane moving from one time zone to another, several hours ahead. 

“Holy shit,” Bella says, so astonished she doesn't even resister the profanity. She assesses herself: before the switch, she'd been on the verge of falling asleep. Now, she's just as awake as she'd been before. The affects of the vodka had mostly dissipated, aside from the sleepiness, but now she feels just as she did before. Her body's completely reset. 

Well, that's something she can easily fix. Bella presses the button for the flight attendant. Again.

“I'd like a Margarita, please. A double.” 

“It comes in a can.” It's the same flight attendant, and for some reason she's less interested in Bella's Margarita than she was the double vodka. 

“Then bring me two, please.” Bella jerks her thumb at Alice, “She's paying.”

“Bella, what on earth are you doing?” Alice says, but she seems mostly confused.

Bella receives and downs one of her drinks, this time without passing over a bomb threat. It had been a diversion, but in retrospect, a smudge misguided. 

_My mind is clearly bending,_ she thinks, resigned. “Well, first things first,” she says, aloud.

“What?”

Bella opens her second can and downs it, not bothering with the plastic cup this time. “If you think he's a very stupid lion at Edward, he'll probably hear you out before going into public,” she says, then takes another long drink. “Check it out, see if I'm right.”

“I can't believe I didn't think of that before,” Alice says, then deflates. “I guess I brought you for nothing, didn't I?”

“Uh-huh.” Bella shrugs. “It's been educational. I'd never been through a strip search before today, so there's that.”

“And Charlie's going to be so upset with you.” Alice laments, seemingly ignoring her last comment as a joke.

“That's the least of my worries,” Bella says honestly. 

12345

Once Alice runs off to get Edward, Bella slides into the driver's side of the Porsche. The leather seats are so stupidly plush and butter-soft that it's sinful. She gives a wave to the police approaching as she pulls out. It's hard, at first, to adjust to just how powerful the car is, and it's been ages since Bella drove a stick shift, since she had her old truck, in fact, and this car bears almost no relation otherwise. Still, she manages. Soon, the walls of Volterra are far enough in the rear view mirror that Bella begins to relax. Another loop where she's been able to avoid vampires (other than Alice, of course, but that one's unavoidable). Bella imagines keeping the streak going, possibly forever. 

“I'm going to have fun,” she says, to no one. “without getting arrested.”

It's bewildering, driving in a foreign country where you don't read the language. Bella can't read any of the signs, and they all have different symbols than she's used to, which leaves her guessing what they mean. But does it really matter? The main thing, as far as Bella's concerned, is that she's not in Volterra, surrounded by vampires, or being killed in a freak accident by Edward. Or mooning over inappropriate bloodthirsty vampires who are probably married and don't even like humans, anyway.

“Worst taste in men, Bella,” she mutters to herself, again because it's completely normal. “Seriously. The worst.”

Bella cruises onward with the driver's side window down, keeping to the highway going north and west, chasing the sun. When the highway folds into a city, she follows it into what turns out to be Florence. Although there's some greenery, it's not as much as she would have expected. There's a lot of old-looking architecture, and behind the city, she can see the outline of what look like mountains. 

She keeps her eyes on the too-narrow road and follows a random sequence of twisting, traffic-filled streets. Finally, she parks the car, stuffs Alice's bag into her backpack, and heads out on foot. 

Bella walks for about fifteen minutes, following people who look like tourists like her: people with cameras, backpacks, sunglasses and comfortable shoes. They slowly fold into a roundabout where a statue of an abstract woman stands in the center, and beyond her, a gateway. 

The gate is clearly hundreds of years old: it's a fated archway like one that could have protected an ancient city, and studded with metal. Bella stares at it beside the others taking pictures, fascinated. She walks through slowly.

There's a walkway, Bella discovers, that leads over the top of the walls surrounding the gate. Bella clutches the rickety metal handrail to one side and follows a couple animatedly snapping pictures. Above the gateway, she reaches the top of the walls, above the gate, and enters a small, claustrophobic space. Inside, to one side of the chamber, she finds luck: There's an English-speaking tour guide surrounded by his charges. Bella hangs near them to listen. 

“As I mentioned on the way here, the _Porta Romana_ was once known as the _Porta San Pier Gattolino_ , Now it lies just below us. At one time, this gate was once the southernmost gate in the 13th-century walls of Florence. This is the largest and best preserved gate of the city. As we go down and pass through the gate, take note: This entrance still has the original iron doors and a marble slab with the Medici coat of arms.” The guide, a short, bored-looking Italian, launches through an explanation. 

Bella watches the guide's explanation and follows as he leads his charges down the rickety staairs back to the gateway. She follows as discreetly as she can, which is, apparently, not nearly discreet enough. One of the women in the group falls into step beside her. 

“Were you on the bus?” she asks. “I'm sorry if I don't remember you. I'm terrible with names.”

“Oh, uh, no?” Bella says. “I actually … I was listening to your tour. I don't have a guidebook, and , well ...” Belatedly, she says, “I'm Bella.”

The woman grins. “Relax, Bella. I'll bet that one's fun with the Italians, huh? I'm Trish.”

Bella finds herself grinning back. “I've only talked to my cab driver, so I wouldn't know.” _And a bunch of vampires._

Trish seems genuinely astonished. “No way. How long have you been here?”

Bella finds herself giving Trish a highly edited account of how she ended up in Italy. Suicidal boyfriend, last minute trip, super rich, reclusive relatives of said boyfriend.

Trish whistles. “I don't blame you for ditching. You should come along with us. The bus isn't full and I'll vouch for you.”

“Won't he notice?” Bella gestures at the tour guide, who is leading them down the main road away from the gateway, along an avenue filled with shops and cafes.

Trish snorts. “I don't think the guide keeps track of who we are. Worst case, you can claim you got on the wrong bus or something. Play helpless lost tourist.”

Bella finds herself grinning. “You think that would work?”

“Of course.” Trish has the look of a woman used to having things work out for her, with her expensively highlighted hair and new-looking clothes. She reminds Bella a little bit of a cross between Alice and Rosalie, only human. And kind. So, maybe not so much like Rosalie. “You seem like you could use a break, Bella. I'm here alone, too. I bought this trip as a 30th birthday present to myself after my fiance broke things off with me.” 

Bella grimaces, thinking of her experience. She opens her mouth to commiserate, then realizes: she's eighteen in this .. reality. If that's what this is.

“Something similar happened to my sister,” she finds herself saying. “On her wedding day.” She looks down and grimaces. “He, that is, the groom, left her.”

Trish stares at her, open mouthed. “Oh my god. At the altar? I thought that only happened in movies.”

 _Yeah, kind of like vampires._ “We were, um, all pretty shocked. I don't guess it was at the altar, though, technically, since he didn't make it there. It was over before the ceremony. After she got into her dress, though.” 

“That bastard!” Trish seems to genuinely upset for her that Bella's heart warms for this woman she barely knows. “What on earth could he have been thinking?”

“They had some issues they never worked out. She wanted to make some changes that he disagreed with. He thought he could, but when it came down to it .. ” Bella shrugs and sighs. 

“Please tell me she didn't take him back, at least.” Trish stares at her intently.

“The sad thing is, I think she might have, but his family left town.”

“Holy crap that is dramatic.” Trish turns to look into one of the passing windows. It's a gelato shop, and when someone exits behind them, Bella is hit with the smell of cream and sugar. She breaths in appreciatively. 

“Yeah.” Bella wonders if she's said too much.

“I hope they don't turn up again.”

“Yeah,” Bella says morosely, “That would be a problem.”

Trish blinks. “Well,” she says, “Is she .. .okay, now?”

Bella nods. “Yeah. She managed to make a life for herself.” _Until one day, she had a car accident on the way to Forks …_

They group is approaching a fountain, in the middle of which is an enormous naked man. The tour guide herds them in a group. “Gather around, everyone. This is the _Piazza della Signoria_ ,” The man turns and raises one arm to point at the statue, “and this rather large fellow here--” 

“Oh, he's large all right.” Trish mutters meaningfully to Bella.

“--is Neptune, god of the waters. The Fountain of Neptune, or _Fontana del Nettuno_ , was commissioned in 1565...” 

“How about you?” Bella asks Trish impulsively. “Are you okay now?”

“Well,” Trish says, “this trip is going well, so I guess I'm working on it, too.” She smiles at Bella.

They stroll around the fountain. Bella takes pictures of Trish sitting on the fountain, and Trish takes one of the two of them. When they're done, Trish says, “It would serve them right if you shack up with one of the rich Italian relatives and never come back.”

Bella laughs a little uneasily. 

“Oh, wait. There was one, wasn't there? Wait, did you actually meet them?” 

Bella smiles, despite herself. She's not getting any of the tour guide's talk, but , despite that, she's enjoying herself. “I did meet him. Them, I don't know them well, it was all kind of … brief and intense,. Formal.”

“Hmm. Did he,” Trish grins, “I mean they, like you?”

Bella considers this. “It was hard to tell. I think?” She thinks about Aro, and wonders, briefly, about what it would be like to come here with him. He'd probably be able to tell her about all of the art. Hell, he probably knew most of the artists. “Anyway,” she says, “he's old.”

“Old isn't always bad,” Trish says, and gestures toward Neptune, standing regal and nude in the middle of the fountain. “I mean, look at him. I'll bet he knows his way around a mermaid.”

Bella does spend the rest of the day with Trish and the tour group. True to Trish's prediction, the tour guide either doesn't notice or couldn't care less that Bella is there. After the fountain, they load themselves back into the bus and wind up in the outskirts of Florence in a small restaurant surrounded by vineyards. The building is quaint and old, and the enthusiastic owners set the tourists up at a long wood table. There's what seems like a never-ending flow of wine, and Trish starts to droop a little, leaning her head on Bella's shoulder at one point. 

“I've had too much to drink today,” she says. “Wine at lunch, some kind of honey liquor at the cafe, wine now.”

No wonder Trish accepted her so readily. Bella smiles. “You're on vacation, right?”

“Mm hmm.” Trish says. “You know, I never saw it coming, but I should have.” she sighs heavily. “He always had these issues, but I really thought he'd worked through them, you know? ”

Bella takes a gulp of her wine, reflecting that she is also doing a lot of drinking. Oh well, at least her liver wouldn't suffer. “Yeah,” she says. “Edward always acted like I was too good for the … life he led. That he didn't want me to end up like his family. Like they were something bad, when they were-are the best people I know. But I think what he didn't want was to decide.”

Trish scoffs. “They have you on the hook and don't want to reel you in or let you go.” 

Bella smiles. “You sound like my father. He's into fishing.” She looks down at her wine, then up at Trish. “I wish I could call him. I just left him a note when I left to rescue Edward.”

Trish slides over her phone. “Use mine,” she says. “Go ahead. I made sure I could call international before I left.”

Bella takes the phone gingerly. Like the rest of Trish, it looks expensive. “Are you sure?”

She is, and Bella wanders tipsily a distance from the table in the pink and red glow of sunset. The vineyards are slowly fading in in the dying light. 

“Hello?” Charlie's voice sounds almost desperate. 

“Hi Dad, it's me. I'm--”

“Oh Bella, thank god. I was so worried. I got that stupid note you left and—do you have any idea--are you really with Alice?”

“Um, I was? I kind of left,” Bella admits. “I, well, I realized how stupid this trip was. I'm sorry, Dad. I guess I lost my head when she asked me to help Edward. But I realize now he doesn't deserve it.”

There's a silence on the line, and Bella almost thinks she hears a stifled sob, which is ridiculous, since it's Charlie. “I'm real glad to hear that, Bella.” He sighs. “When are you coming home?”

Bella takes a deep breath. “Tomorrow.”

Charlie sighs, clearly relieved. “Good. That's good. Where are you, anyway?”

“Um.”

“Bella?”

“Italy?”

Charlie says, too calmly, “Hang on just a second, Bella. I thought you said, Italy. Like the country. In Eurpoe. Could you repeat that?”

“Um--”

“ I don't think we have a very good connection. Because I know you're not in Italy after leaving me only a note.”

Bella grimaces. This is going to be a longer call that she thought. 

12345

Bella rides back to the tour group's hotel with them. “You can stay with me, if you need to,” Trish offers, yawning, and Bella smiles at her, feeling fond of this woman, and a little sad. Bella probably won't ever see Trish again, and, if she does, the other woman won't remember the day they've shared. 

“I think I'll get a cab,” Bella says. “I need to go pick up Alice's car, anyway.” This is a lie, since it wasn't Alice's car to begin with, and has likely been impounded by the Italian police by now. 

Trish gives her a one-armed hug. “Good luck, Bella. I hope you find what you're looking for. And,” Trish pulls back, looking her in the eyes, “tell your sister that she deserves better than some jerk who leaves her at the altar and runs off to Italy.”

Bella grimaces. “That obvious?” 

“Not really. I just recognize the look.”

Bella nods. “Good luck to you, too, Trish.”

They part ways amicably, and Bella goes wandering off under the night stars. The buildings are all so old and beautiful. Out of sight of the hotel, Bella sits on a bench and stares up at the heavens, feeling suddenly empty. It's been a great day, all things (and there are many) considered, but now that Trish is gone, and her chatter with her, Bella feels keenly alone. Soon, she will reawaken on an airplane, the world will reset, and the only person who will remember what has happened will be her. 

The stars are muted in the city. Without her permission, Bella's mind brings up a hazy memory of the painting on Carlisle's wall, the one Edward had shown her so long ago. The Volturi on a balcony, looking down. Bella wonders if that balcony has a view. The stars are probably brighter there.

There's no use dwelling on such things, Bella figures, for she has no need to see the Volturi at all, anymore. Not when there's so much to see in Florence, then Pisa, then maybe even farther afield. She has no reason to think about vampires or loneliness or Ato Volturi for a long, long time.


End file.
